Missoula Marathon-Pre Race
About five weeks ago I decided to run the Missoula Marathon. The reader’s of Runner’s World voted it the best overall marathon and since we had never been to Montana we thought it would be a great way to combine my love of running and a family vacation.
I had already started training for the Steamtown Marathon in October so my mileage was running 50+ miles a week. My longest run had been an 18 miler..I figured I could get in a 20 and a 22 miler in before needing to taper. I definitely felt that I could do well at the marathon but not run my peak performance pace since I had not gone through a complete training cycle.
My first week of tapering was rough because we were in New York and did a lot of walking along with my 50 miles. It didn’t feel like a taper week at all. The second week of the taper I felt beat up and slow. This really discouraged me because after my last long run I thought it might be possible to BQ in Missoula and then skip Steamtown. After stressing for a week and being depressed and reading Chi Running. I decided to relax and enjoy myself in Missoula. Treat it as a little test and enjoy the experience.
We arrived in Missoula a couple days early and did a little sightseeing. I tried to make sure we didn’t do anything to strenuous. The day before the race we went to the expo. Not a big expo but just enough to look around and do a little shopping. The expo was at Caras park so there were other things to do as well. We walked around the farmer’s market and bought a couple things to nibble on, walked along the river, took the kids to the carousel (which I rode as well, while trying to grab rings out of the dragon’s mouth) and then we let the kid’s play at the cool playground. After that we went to lunch and back to the hotel. I stayed at the hotel to relax the rest of the day and my husband took the kids to a little local water park (Splash Montana). I rested as much as I could and then went to bed early so that I could wake up at 3:30 AM, get ready for the race and catch the bus to the start line.
Filed under: Running Blog
